Lavender Brown (lavenderblue) wrote in plagued_logs, @ 2015-12-05 09:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | 1998 december, fenrir greyback, lavender brown |
WHO: Lavender & Fenrir
WHAT: Full moon
WHEN: Thursday night
WHERE: The Quidditch Pitch
RATING: Low
STATUS: Closed | Complete!
You are sunlight and I moon
On the fifth full moon since she’d woken from a bad dream that never really ended, Lavender went to bed early. She wasn’t really expecting to get any sleep at all, but if she was going to get any it would be before the moon was fully out. Her skin was already itching, muscles shifting, twitching painfully under the skin in response to the pull of it. She put on pyjamas and crawled into bed, after pouring a vial of potion into a glass of water and downing it. Madam Pomfrey said it would help with the pain, but it didn’t, much. Still, it was better than nothing. She’d spent the last few moons in the hospital wing, where she would be watched, and on her insistence Madam Pomfrey had secured her wrist to the bed so that she couldn’t wander off. But since the night in London that was little more than a blur of cold, wet confusion in her memory, there hadn’t been any more incidents. Maybe whatever it was was getting better, or she was getting stronger control over it, though it felt like she’d never been less in control her whole life. At any rate, there was no point taking up a bed in the hospital wing now, when so many other people needed it. She’d get through tonight, somehow, and then sleep all day tomorrow if she wanted to. Professor McGonagall had given her special permission to skip classes the day after a full moon. Which was nice of her, considering, Lavender thought. She laid down under the covers, trying to ignore the way her body ached all over. Not just the big muscles in her arms and legs, but her face, even her fingers hurt. Muscles and nerves trying to twist into shapes her bones wouldn’t hold. After a while she heard the other girls come to bed, but her curtains were closed and they didn’t bother her. Then it all went quiet, except for the beat of her heart, unnaturally loud in her chest, and the low whistle of the winter wind outside. She thought she might have actually dozed off for a bit. Or at least, she wasn’t quite aware of where she was, when she heard another sound. Far off, but not too far off not to hear. She sat up, heart pounding even harder, not just with pain and anxiety now but with real fear. A howl. A howl she recognised from her nightmares. She pushed the curtains aside and padded on tiptoe over to the window. the brightness of the moon, white and round in the sky, made her wince and hunch her shoulders. There was nothing else to see, only the grounds as usual, and the silvery curtain of the quarantine barrier, far above and away. What had she been expecting to see? Just a wolf, she told herself, even while she was holding her breath, waiting. There are wolves in the forest. It’s just - When the next howl came, her fingers tightened on the windowsill until her knuckles went white, and her knees buckled so that she almost fell. The howl wasn’t just in her ears; it was in her mind, in her whole body. Come to me. Don’t go out there, warned the girl-Lavender part of her mind, fighting it as best she could. You can’t go out there. It’s all over if you go. Don’t listen. Lavender put her hands over her ears, panting, and pressed them down hard. Can’t hear, can’t hear you, can’t hear you… She ought to wake someone, she knew, ask Parvati to tie her up, or use a stunning spell… but something kept her standing perfectly still and silent by the window, closed eyes and closed ears. The howl came again. The next thing she knew, she was moving swiftly and silently across the grounds, towards the Quidditch Pitch. Her pale blue pyjamas were no protection against the night’s chill, but she didn’t feel it. She felt only the crunch of stiff grass under her bare feet, and the constant irresistible call of the pack. --- The bitter cold night seemed to shift as the cloud veiled moon cast intense shadows across the field. Soft rustling eschewed from beneath the stands, joined by the creak of timbers. The yellow banner of Hufflepuff rippled from impact, and shifted aside to let a scarred, robed figure emerge. Sharp, lupine eyes stared across the field to lock with the young woman’s. Cracked lips peeled back into a grizzly grin of filed fangs. As the slightest edge of the full moon broke through the cloudline, a quiet chuckle rolled over the quidditch field. “So…… You did survive…. How delightful..” --- Lavender wasn’t afraid anymore, not on the surface anyway. It seemed silly to be afraid when she was one with the moon. One with the pack. She had felt so alone, these last few months, even with friends and family around her. Sometimes especially then. They didn’t know. They couldn’t understand what she was; who she was now. She had spent so much energy looking for answers, for someone to tell her what she was supposed to do. And here was pack-leader, calling her, bringing her out into the moonlight. She wasn’t alone anymore. But neither, under the light of the moon, was she really Lavender anymore, either. She walked over the hard cold ground towards him, a freezing wind whipping at the hems of her pyjamas and her long dark hair, making it lift and tangle around her scarred face. The scars pulled at her skin a little, as though they recognised and could feel the presence of the one who had made them. The sensation, rippling across her whole body, made her shudder with some feeling that was deeper than pain. She stopped and looked up at him with wide, dark eyes. She didn’t know what she was, but she wasn’t a werewolf. There was no potion for what she had, no remedy known to wizardkind. She would not change shape, no matter how much her wolf-brain wanted her to. The part of her mind that was still the girl-Lavender screamed and raged and tried to make her run away, but the pull of the moon and the pack was far too strong for her to turn back now even if it were safe to do so, which she knew it wasn’t. He could kill her now as easily as he would swat a fly. He still might. The moon was starting to peek from behind the clouds. “You came for me,” she somehow managed to say, in a low, shaking voice. --- The grin widened into a laughing smile. “Of course I returned for you! How could I not? I Made you, sweet child, made you Stronger and Faster and have given you a purpose and the opportunity to have a family that understands you…!” He held out a clawed, calloused hand. “Come here, let me get a look at you. You have healed beautifully!” He spoke with a kindness and compassion one would expect from a caring uncle or grandfather, completely sincere. His presence and will seemed to be amplified by the shimmering silver glow of the clouds. His eyes were virtually luminous. --- Lavender took one last step forward and let her hand fall into his. It was very small and pale in comparison, and more scars could be seen under the edge of her sleeve, poking through. “It still hurts, sometimes,” she said, lowering her eyes subserviently. She was lower than the lowest pack member, she knew instinctively. She was a half and half creature. She put her other hand to the collar of her cotton pyjama shirt. Her skin was prickling. -- Fenrir nodded solemnly at the comment. “It will continue to hurt, for as long as you resist what your blood calls you to be. You must know that by now?” he says, questions in his expression. “You will be torn between these two states of being month after month. Your isolation will not lessen, nor will the pain subside.” He took a step back, dropping her hand. “You have done nothing yet to earn your relief. I will not complete what I started until you are ready. Tell me, how long can you endure?” His eyes suddenly did their best to bore into Lavender’s very essence, primal posture demanding an answer from the frail subject of scrutiny. --- Lavender’s breath caught in her throat, as she continued to stare down at her hands. She knew in the depths of her soul that he was right. A half life such as this was no life at all. But the girl-Lavender remembered Professor Lupin, and how kind he’d been, and how sad. Would that life be any better? She was just a girl, and a weak, skinny one at that. She was sure a true transformation would tear her to shreds. “Please,” she said, in a whisper that was almost taken away by the wind. “Please, I just… want to be normal.” --- Fenrir raised an eyebrow. “Normal? This is the new normal for you. There is no going back to the horrid life of tedious nothingness. At best, you spend all your days going mad from isolation and craving need. At worse, you replace the decrepit bag your school uses as a Janitor once you come down with that nasty virus. I don’t see you lasting long as a Squib. But…..” Fenrir stepped close quickly, chest to chest with the smaller girl to leave her unable to look away. “There is no cure for Lycanthropy. Meaning there will be no undoing it even if you are infected. However, it is therefore equally likely that Lycanthropy is the only thing that will keep it at bay. So consider, dear, that you could very easily turn this into the best thing to happen to you. Save yourself and your friends, make your own pack, and have a family that will stick by you forever. Hell, odds are you’d be saving them from losing their magic forever.” He smiled warmly. “What do you say? Will you save them all and yourself? Or watch as everyone succumbs…… to a fate worse than death..?” his low voice rasped. --- Lavender looked up at the big man, shaking a little. I won’t do this to my friends, the girl-Lavender thought in a rare moment of bold defiance. I won’t put Parvati through that, or Dean, or Seamus or Ron or Hermione or anyone. That wouldn’t be saving them, it would be cursing them like she had been cursed. But the words wouldn’t come out even if she’d dared try to say them. She was too afraid, too much under the thrall to protest. “What do you want me to do?” she asked instead. --- He spread his hands, sending both the signal for being unarmed, and making himself look larger. The clouds were thinning, causing his eyes to gleam brighter. “Nothing. Just send the message. Let them know they could be saved. And, as you bring together your pack, I’ll work on a booster to see you resolve your transformation. Three friends, and I save you. That’s the minimum number for a newly budding pack.” He stepped back and glanced skyward, and took several paces away. “I expect to see you each moon from now on. This was nice. It will be good to know how you are holding on.” --- Lavender looked up as the clouds moved aside and the moon shone through. It wasn’t really all that bright, as moonlight never is, but she flinched and looked away as her whole body shuddered and tightened. She doubled up, whimpering, and when she looked up again towards Fenrir, her eyes were glowing in the dim moonlight. She panted and tore at her clothes as she watched the light spill over the man, unable to look away, paralysed by fascination as he began to change. --- A sadistic, manic smile split across the scarred expanse of his face. “Soon.” With that whisper, he was gone. A few moments later, a howl rose up from the direction of Hogsmeade. |